


Sappho of Midvale

by Daxolotl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Bad Poetry, F/F, First Kiss, I feel like that's a fantasy both of them have had since Kara was about sixteen, Kara kisses Alex while wearing all of her surfing medals, Latent Homosexuality, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 09:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxolotl/pseuds/Daxolotl
Summary: All self-respecting edgy teenagers had a poetry-writing phase.Alex's was just a lot lessstraightthan she remembers it being.





	Sappho of Midvale

"Kara?" Alex calls out as she opens her door and stares across an ocean of cardboard. "Why is my apartment full of boxes?"

The superhero in question races into view, another two boxes held in her hands. "The roof's been leaking in Midvale. The whole attic needs to be cleared out while they fix it, and Eliza asked me to bring these boxes of our old stuff here for us to sort through. If we can get rid of some of it, or move it in with us, it'll save her some space."

Alex blinks.

"So…she wants us to search through boxes of science fair trophies, surfing medals and old schoolbooks?"

"Yep!" Kara responds, pulling the lid from one box and starting to rifle through it.

"And she wants us to do this without you getting distracted by absolutely every shiny object you find?"

"Yep!" Kara responds, before making a pleased gasp and pulling out an old Transformer. "Firestar! I knew I'd find you some day."

Alex groans.

_ _ _

"God, why does Mom still have all my old notebooks?" Alex asks, the second hour into their search. She's covered in dust, has found at least three spiders, and they've only just finished with the second box.

"Notebooks for what?" Kara asks, jangling with a dozen surfing medals around her neck.

"Uhh…school work, mostly. There were a few I just doodled in, I dunno. I thought she threw them out when I filled them up; I never knew she put them in a box somewhere."

Kara crawls over, through piles of childhood toys, and shoves Alex away in order to poke through the box.

"'Hey, Alex, can I look in that box?', 'Sure, Kara, go ahead, I can work with another box', 'Gee, thanks Alex, you're the best sister in the world!'" Alex says to herself, pulling over another box, this one full of science journals. Kara sticks her tongue out at her.

"Grade 8, Grade 8, Grade 9, Grade 11…ooh, this one just has thorns drawn all over it."

Wait. Thorns? Alex frowns, thinking and trying to remember. "Oh, wow, I think that was from my Edgy Teenager phase."

"Phase?" Kara retorts, and Alex punches her in the shoulder.

"All my dramatic poetry about Jeremiah and about _boys_." Alex snorts. "I spent way too long worrying about that last part, considering."

"Oh, come on, it can't have been _that_ bad."

"Oh, it was bad," Alex says. "Take a look if you really want to. Just know that there's an entire sonnet about Brandon Cooper, a poem that rhymes 'darkness' with 'emptiness' no less than three times, and…for some reason, some escapist fiction featuring me in a hospital in Seattle. I think that ended in a plane crash?"

Kara blinks.

"I was a very overdramatic teenager, if you don't remember."

"Trust me, I remember. I still don't think it'll be that bad." 

Kara flicks open the journal and reads the first page. 

"…Okay, yeah, no, it's that bad."

Alex scowls. "Hey! It's okay when _I_ talk down to my work! You're not supposed to do it!"

Kara giggles and crawls over to half-hug Alex, continuing to hold the notebook open. "It's very, uh….descriptive? Prosaic? It's…"

"It's godawful, I know."

Kara flips through a few pages, lying down on Alex's lap and making it completely impossible for her to search through any boxes. 

"Blood, blood, blood, blood,  
We are filled with it,  
And yet I feel so empty."

They both start giggling.

"It's…unique, I'll give it that."

"I'm giving you permission to say it's godawful," Alex rolls her eyes.

"Okay, yeah, it's…" Kara trails off, eyes flicking over a piece as she turns another page. "…Hey, um. Alex? Remember Vicki Donahue?"

She frowns. "Yeah? Why?"

"'Her green eyes pierce deep into mine,  
They look like diamonds but are simply rhine,  
Her soft red lips paint a charming guise,  
But now I know they speak naught but lies.'"

The two of them sit in silence for a few seconds after Kara finishes quoting the poem.

"That's really gay."

Alex flicks Kara between the eyes. 

"Ow!"

"I was in denial! I probably wrote that to vent about the messy end to our friendship. Just because, in retrospect, it kind of…comes across as pretty gay, doesn't change anything. Cut me some slack."

Kara reaches up, stroking her fingers through the shaved side of Alex's hair. She's been doing that a lot since she got it cut. She likes the texture, apparently. "I'm not mocking you, I promise. That was….actually pretty decent. Definitely a lot better than 'blood – the sonnet'."

"I'm so glad my latent homosexuality made me a better poet," Alex says, dryly.

"Sappho would be proud."

The fall into silence for a while, Kara reading and stroking her fingers across Alex's hair. She occasionally snorts a laugh, but Alex is relaxed enough about her past self to not feel any embarrassment when that happens. Kara knows her. Laughing at her embarrassing past is something they can both do. She closes her eyes, and relaxes. She deserves a rest like this.

After a few minutes, Alex notices that the stroking of her hair has stopped. There's also no sounds of laughter or snorts of amusement. She frowns and opens her eyes. "Kara, what's…"

Kara is staring at her.

"Uh…Kara?"

Kara opens her mouth to speak, and the words that fall from her lips are words Alex barely remembers writing – the words of a lifetime ago.

"Who comes from the stars?  
No mortal men or girls,  
A god in gentle form,  
Not of this mundane world. 

No mortal men or girls,  
Give up their homes by choice,  
Not for this mundane world,  
There was no choice to make. 

Give up my home by choice,  
To my sister from another world,  
There was no choice to make,  
Give my name and my love. 

My sister from another world,  
A god in gentle form,  
My name and my love,  
Who comes from the stars."

Alex opens and closes her mouth a few times. Her brain shuts off. She can't think of anything to say. She'd blocked that from her memory, like so many other things. Hearing it now, hearing it from _Kara's_ lips…

"Alex?"

The name snaps her out of whatever shock she was in, and her heart rate spikes. "Hah! That old thing, that, uh. I guess I had a lot of emotions about the alien girl living with us and Mom telling me to look after you. You know me!"

Kara's gaze softens. "Alex…" she says, chastisingly, and it just makes her panic more.

"No, really, Kar, that's not. I know we said that poem about Vicki was gay and in denial, but the poem for you was just…straight up sisterly, there's no way that—"

Kara leans up and kisses her.

Kara. Kisses. Her.

Her brain shuts off again, and she responds. She kisses Kara, slowly, deeply, cupping her cheeks so gently as Kara floats upwards to shift and sit in her lap.

They pull back, breathing heavily, and stare into each other's eyes for a few moments.

"…Are you gonna write a totally-straight poem about this later?" Kara asks.

Alex throws a pillow at her face.

**Author's Note:**

> _the short poem about Vicki Donahue is a fairly simple AABB rhyming format, while the poem for Kara is a pantoum – a non-rhyming poem in which all lines are repeated in specific orderings, usually with alternate meaning growing from the repetition. The first and third lines become the third-from-last and last, creating a book-end feeling and a symmetry._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _...Also, both this and CatCo Magazine Halloween have ended with Kara saying something silly that ruined the moment. Why am I like this._


End file.
